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Ilon losing schedules

I have had two Ilon e3's lose their schedules in the last week. Here is what is happening. Our customers are configuring their schedules through the ilon. One particular ilon, the customer would input their schedules and lose them again almost daily. These are both between 8 months-1 year old, so they are not too old. Both have been updated to 3.02.20.

In the case of the one losing schedules daily, we replaced their ilon. Before doing this, I copied the eventScheduler.xml file so I could copy it to the new ilon. Everything seemed to be fine, but the customer stated that those were their original schedules from more than 4 months ago, in which they had used the nvoOccState instead of the nviOccCmd.

On the other ilon, this past Thursday, the customer called and said all of his schedules were gone. I verified through the web interface that there were no schedules. I then went to the .xml file and sure enough, it was just a 1kb file. While the eventCalendar and Loggers, etc were still there, the only thing that got corrupted was the Scheduler. To make it more bizarre, his units still shut off at 4pm as was originally scheduled.

We have 25-30 of these units all over Florida. We have never had this problem and now two in one week. Called Echelon, which was no help at all and had no solution. Has anyone else had this happen? My thoughts on it now is that there is a problem with the Echelon firmware. Somehow, these schedules are getting backed up in the flash memory which is the only way I can explain the units turning off at an originally scheduled time even though the .xml file is blank. Same with the fact that the other webserver "restored" the original, incorrectly configured schedules.

We only use the web interface. I went in through the plug-in last night and found out what you just confirmed about using both. Customers only have web interface and usually only on the standard side. The service side and ftp is protected against their use. Also, we use a strong password on the initial index page to prevent unauthorized use.

Did you actually ftp the schedules over and make sure they were 1KB with no data? Something is dancing around in my head about the wrong FTP program not seeing that there is actually data in the file... (possibility)

No, all the schedules were entered by the customer through the web interface in both instances. Very maddening. I'm just worried that it IS some kind of firmware issue and dreading the thought of losing a couple more schedules this week. Both of these are still within the guarantee period so of course the customers are "panicky-pete's" about it all. :-)

I could possibly set up an alarm for the schedule even though I don't know of a point that I could use which would identify data within the .xml file. I'm sure I could work something up to do this. It's a good idea. My biggest concern though is why it is happening, not necessarily when. If it were just the one unit, then I'd be with you on that. But with two doing the same thing, it kind of worries me, making me attach the 'why'.

I could possibly set up an alarm for the schedule even though I don't know of a point that I could use which would identify data within the .xml file. I'm sure I could work something up to do this. It's a good idea. My biggest concern though is why it is happening, not necessarily when. If it were just the one unit, then I'd be with you on that. But with two doing the same thing, it kind of worries me, making me attach the 'why'.

Understood. But if there is some consistency to when it happens that might help point you to the why.

I'm very interested in your outcome as I have just installed several in my building.

You may want to go to the Echelon web board and post this question there. I have several e3s running with schedules with no problems.

I have had some configuration trouble in the past where you have to be careful how you make the changes in the schedules. I'm not connected to one now so I can't recall the details. The jist is, I would try to change a schedule for one day only to find out that the whole week changed to that time, or all of the 'unoccupied' settings would disappear. Things like that would happen but it was obvious before I left the configuration page. That hasn't happened to me in quite some time now.

Don't take this issue as anything that may influence your confidence in these servers. They are great devices. Our problems with them have been minimal over the last 4-5 years since we started using them. This one though.....

You may want to go to the Echelon web board and post this question there. I have several e3s running with schedules with no problems.

I have had some configuration trouble in the past where you have to be careful how you make the changes in the schedules. I'm not connected to one now so I can't recall the details. The jist is, I would try to change a schedule for one day only to find out that the whole week changed to that time, or all of the 'unoccupied' settings would disappear. Things like that would happen but it was obvious before I left the configuration page. That hasn't happened to me in quite some time now.

Just signed up over there now, dapper. Thanks for the heads up on their forum! I know that at least one of the customer's config'ed his schedules correctly. He is on his system like 5 hours a day and emails us like 3-4 times a week if something is more than 5 minutes off. Like I was saying before, the weird part is the eventScheduler.xml file basically gets dumped, even though it remains there but with "1kb" properties. When you set up a new iLon, that file does not even exist there until you begin to create schedules.

I appreciate all the responses so far. While none of them have been the "golden ticket" I'd love to get, it's definitely getting the ol' brain thinking in different directions.